April 24 - Cranz and the village of Ruebke

Kim had told us that the cherry trees were in bloom across the Elbe in the “Alten Land” (Old Land) orchard area, so we decided to take the S-Bahn to a ferry from Blankenese to Cranz and then walk south from there. That part of our plan worked out pretty well. We didn’t find a bus from the Blankenese train station to the ferry on the banks of the Elbe, so we walked down the riverside bluff and along the way found a weekend market place that had a bakery stand where we bought some cinnamon rolls. We munched on those as we hustled over to the wharf and boarded the ferry, but on the boat we were surprised to find that our group ticket didn’t cover the ferry, so we had to pony up 3 Euro each. Monika really enjoys ferry rides (see “Muschi and the Ferry”) so for us it was worth it, but I later found that we could have taken the 150 bus from Altona train station to Cranz and saved the 6 Euro for the ferry.

In any case, the water was smooth and the sun was peeking thru as we crossed the Elbe, so we just enjoyed the ride. The Alten Land area on the south side of the Elbe is quite extensive and the orchards are really scattered all over, so the question was which way to walk from the ferry landing. The previous evening Monika had found a tiny little gray line on our bicycle map that went from Cranz down to a town called Ruebke, and we decided to try that route because the family lore had it that her father’s folks had come from that little town. So we walked out of Cranz and over a canal to catch a road south for a couple of kilometers. It turned out that the pedestrian path was on top of an old dike, so we had a beautiful view of the surrounding countryside with all the fields and orchards. The orchards were mainly cherry and apple trees as far as I could see. Since it was still early spring in these lattitudes, the cherry trees were in full bloom and resembled big puffy clouds of white blossoms. The apple trees still had their buds and I judged they would blossom a week or two after the cherry trees just like they do in my front yard in Virginia!

When we reached a major highway we turned right to try to find that little gray line, and there we had our first problems. Those little blue lines on the map that were all around the gray line turned out not to be other tertiary roads as I had hoped, but rather canals. The map showed (correctly) that the whole Alte Land area was crisscrossed with a network of these canals, and that fact very shortly became a crucial factor in our walk. We worked our way back on a road that lead to a couple of houses, but it seemed to end there so we followed the road as it turned right into a farmstead. There was an “Eintritt Verboten” (Entry Forbidden) sign straight ahead of us, but Monika reasoned that the sign didn’t apply if we immediately turned into the orchard on our left. I had misgivings about that, but she talked me into it (shades of Adam and Eve!) and we started walking thru some farmer’s orchard searching for that little gray road.

Shortly afterward I heard a large German shepherd barking like crazy, and that dog just got more and more upset. I kept hoping that they weren’t going to release that thing to chase us down, because none of those orchard trees were large enough to climb if he cornered us. In fact, we were walking down an aisle of orchard trees between two of those canals, so we had no choice but to go forward or go back past a very upset German shepherd. The track we were following petered out in the middle of the orchard, but fortunately I spotted what was probably the correct “road” 100 yards off to our left and we continued south with the Hound of the Baskervilles continuing to bellow behind us. Then we reached a big cross canal about 20 feet in width and there was no bridge!

Now we were in a pickle. Some of the Gentle Readers of this journal might have wondered why we keep walking Volksmarches where someone else has laid out the route. Well, the answer to this unspoken question is that when we walk a pre-tested walk created by local residents, we avoid uncomfortable choices like walking back past a very angry German shepherd guard dog or swimming a 20-foot canal! Pondering the pros and cons of dog bites versus hypothermia—the temperature was only about 50—we turned left to search for a possible crossing point. Fortunately we found a crossing further on and thus avoided the horns of a dilemma. Continuing along on the traces of an old country lane, we passed a herd of strangely attentive cows—was I getting better at mooing?—to arrive at the town of Ruebke.

As we walked out of the fields to the town limits I looked around and read a sign saying “Privatweg” (Private Property) sign on the country lane we had been following. Oops. That was embarrassing, but at least nobody came out to yell at us or, as happened once in Illinois, wave a shotgun at me. (That was the same old story of car out of gas at 2 in the morning, nieces asleep in back seat, fetal pig biology project in the trunk, and suspicious farmer with shotgun that has probably happened to everyone reading this). It reminded me of the time we were walking in the area around a military base, got lost, and as we walked out of the woods we passed a big sign. I turned around and read it as we walked by and it said something like, “Danger! Target area with live munitions. No Trespassing!” When you think about treading on a live bomb and getting blown to smithereens, that is scary. Of course it would save your descendants the cost of cremation and the bother of scattering the ashes, but that is cold comfort for someone who will very unexpectedly have to meet St. Peter at the gate. Fortunately in this case there was nothing explosive—we had just walked down someone’s country lane and as Woody Guthrie once sang, the sign didn’t say anything on the other side! But no wonder the poor dog had been so upset at us intruders violating his territory.

Once we arrived in Ruebke, we deliberately walked the entire length of the town (it is a string of houses for a half a kilometer along the highway). We were hoping to find either a church with a cemetery where we could look for some of Monika’s ancestors or a Gasthof (restaurant) where we could eat lunch. We found, unfortunately, neither, which was pretty surprising considering how prevalent both churches and Gasthofs are in rural German villages! To be blunt, there was not much there there, as Dorothy Parker may have said, and so we curled back to the north to connect with a Hamburg city bus route.

Walking back north we noticed a set of signs complaining about the planned interstate that the German government wants to build to better connect Hamburg and Cuxhaven. The signs showed that the “Not In My Back Yard” (NIMBY) spirit is definitely alive and well in Germany! The one we laughed over the most was a sign located in an apple grove that said in effect, “The exit for A-26 will destroy our culture!” All we could think was, what culture? The apple orchard? The one-street village with no church, no store, no restaurant, no tavern, and in fact no anything? The other signs the farmer had posted along the road were similarly funny or ironic to us because we are so used to those kinds of reactions in our area of Virginia, although I am sure that they were meant to be a serious political statement. In the nearby town of Neuenfelder (New Fields) where we caught the bus we saw more NIMBY signs opposing the extension of the runway at the Airbus production plant on the banks of the Elbe.

We found a Turkish grill in the shopping center across from the Neugraben S-Bahn station, so we ate there before taking a train back downtown to the Rathaus. There we revisted the tents in the plaza and picked up more travel literature on the new European Union states of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia. I asked about bicycle or motorcycle tours of the Baltic States and was given a great map that showed a 21-day automobile tour of the high points of all three states. Whoa, I could see another Wanderung coming up there! Of course one of the 101 high points listed on the map was a really big rock and another one was a big tree, so that might turn out to be a rather low-key Wanderung, but we will see.

Having scored the information that we wanted we searched the department stores for a good rain hat for Monika, finally finding a nice embroidered one on sale at Karstadt. Being pretty tired and footsore by that time, we took the S-Bahn back to Reinbek for the evening. After Abendessen we settled in for the Sport Show—highlights of all the week’s soccer games—and the usual evening news before heading to bed.